Whether or not Scandinavian prisons are ‘superior’ is a matter of opinion. Many believe that their approach towards rehabilitation should be a model for the rest of the world, others say they would find it impossible to pursue in their country due to general attitudes and beliefs of the public. In this dissertation I wish to compare and contrast Norwegian Prisons with Scottish Prisons, as they have a similar population with very different statistics involving crime.
I want to investigate whether you can rehabilitate prisoners as well as punish them, or if you must choose one or the other. The punishing conditions in the UK and US satisfy their sense of justice, however the majority (if not all) of Norwegians are strong believers in rehabilitation. There are four main objectives when incarcerating a prisoner: punishment, protection, rehabilitation and deterrence. It is often said that prisons cannot achieve all four and tend to focus on one objective more than others. In my opinion, in the UK we tend to focus more on the punishment aspects of justice, rather than rehabilitation. Norwegians follow the idea that having your liberty and freedom removed is a big enough punishment, and the prisons should therefore focus on…show more content… Another point that criticises punishment techniques suggests that the psychological punishment of imprisonment induces emotions of anxiety, frustration and anger which can trigger the loss of respect for authority and the law. The last question in my survey asked the public whether or not punishment truly deters people from committing crimes, only 21% answered yes, 64% answered no and 15% were not entirely sure. So despite the majority answering that the Scottish Penal System is too easy on our prisoners, why should go the extra mile to ensure they are
